Ahoy, Scallywags, Give Us Yer Loot

Look at that bunch of Scallywags! GeekDad Erik Wecks and family with me and my daughters. Photo: Robyn Liu

Overview: Avast, me hearties! We’ve got our pile of booty and now we have to divvy it up — but we’re pirates, after all. Who wants to be fair? Scallywags is a quick-playing family game of “pirates and plund-arrr” from Gamewright. And while we’re at it, I’ll throw in a review of Loot, another Gamewright pirate game (with the same artist, Gary Locke).

Players: 2 to 6

Ages: 8 and up

Playing Time: 15 minutes

Retail: $15.99

Rating: Booty-ful, but with a peg leg. (Translation: fun and silly, but with a flaw.)

Who Will Like It? Pirates who like booty, and people who like pirates. Definitely on the simpler end so not as much for hardcore gamers.

Time to divvy up the loot. Photo: Jonathan Liu

Theme: Pirates and gold. There are little irregularly-shaped “gold” coins, lots of goofy pirate illustrations with names like “Blow me down!” and “Yo ho ho!” There’s not necessarily a direct connection between the name of a card and what it does thematically, but you probably won’t mind.

Components:

The game comes with 54 cards and 40 plastic coins. The coins have the Gamewright logo on one side, and a value on the other (skull=0, 1, 3, 5, and 8). The gold-colored coins are a nice touch and my kids definitely like them, but they can be a little hard to read, particularly from across the table. As you can see in the photo above, it’s hard to tell if you’re looking at a 3, 5, or 8 from a particular angle. On the other hand, it means that when you pick up a face-down coin to peek at it, it’s harder for other players to “accidentally” see what it is.

I do wish the box were one of the smaller pocket-sized types, because it’s an 8″ square box for a pouch of coins and a deck of cards. I’ve just kept the plastic bag for the coins and I’ll grab them out of the box if I’m taking them somewhere.

A few of the Scallywags cards. Photo: Jonathan Liu

Gameplay:

Setup is very simple: deal everyone 3 cards, and then dump all the coins in the middle, spreading them out so there’s just one layer. Important: do not flip any coins over! They stay as they were, face-up or face-down. Also important: as you take coins, you must keep them in order, so other players know what order you got them in. You’re allowed to peek at your own face-down coins, but then they stay face-down.

On your turn, you may do one of three things:

Take a face-down coin and put it in front of you.

Play a card and do what it says (after reading the title in your best pirate voice, of course). Then draw a card.

Discard a card and draw a replacement.

The cards allow you to do things like taking face-up coins, swapping face-down coins with another player, or peeking at two face-down coins and giving them to opponents. There are also cards to steal coins from other players, either into your own stash or back into the middle. And, of course, there’s the crucial “Hands off me booty!” card which prevents a player from taking a card.

The game ends when each player has exactly eight coins (in a 2-3 player game) or six coins (in a 4-6 player game). Note that once you’ve hit your maximum, you cannot gain any more coins — although you can swap coins or have them stolen from you. Everyone reveals their coins, adds up the values, and the player with the highest value wins.

Conclusion:

Scallywags is pretty simple and straightforward, with a lot of “take that” gameplay. The strategy comes in knowing when to give coins to opponents, and also in trying to figure out which face-down coins are worth taking. There are only two 8-value coins in the entire pile, so those often become the focus of the stealing and swapping, but a quiet player can rack up some 5-point coins in the meantime.

The flaw in the game (aside from the difficult-to-read coins) is that there’s no way to get rid of unwanted face-up coins. If you get a face-down coin you don’t want, there are cards that let you swap with somebody else. But if you get a face-up skull, then there’s nothing you can do about it: you can’t swap it or put it back, and nobody is going to steal it from you. Once you max out on your coin count, you may find yourself simply discarding and drawing until the game’s over because you don’t have any cards that will work.

But this is a double-edged sword (so, not a cutlass): the fact that your options are limited when you reach your max coin count limits the length of the game. If everyone were allowed to ditch their low-value coins easily, then the game would keep going on and on. Usually what happens is as people start maxing out themselves, they start playing more cards that give coins to the other players, filling in the stashes with the lowest coins they can find. At any rate, since the game plays so quickly, you’re usually not stuck for too long anyway.

Overall, Scallywags is a cute little game that’s fun for families and gives younger kids a little practice doing some simple addition, and maybe learning to keep a poker face. (My eight-year-old is starting to pick up on this, though now that she’s bluffing about every coin we can still figure her out.) It may not satisfy gamers looking for more strategy, but if you like pirates then it’s a decent filler.

Wired: A pile of plastic coins and great pirate illustrations on the cards. Easy to learn, quick to play.

Tired: When you max out your coin count you may feel stuck. Coins are hard to read.

Continue reading for a bonus review of Loot!

Watch out for those pirates! Photo: Jonathan Liu

Overview:Loot is a Gamewright classic — it’s been around for years, but it’s an excellent game in a tiny package. There are merchant ships full of gold, and pirates who are after it. But limited moves mean that you have to make tough decisions: will you send out your own merchant ships and hope they arrive safely, or attack somebody else’s ship?

Players: 2 to 8

Ages: 10 and up (younger players can certainly learn this one)

Playing Time: 20 minutes

Retail: $10.99

Rating: Loot-a-licious! This one’s really excellent, and one of the games that started off my games collection years ago.

Who Will Like It? This is another one for fans of pirates, but is also a great game for somebody wanting some tough decisions packed into a quick game.

Theme: Pirates and gold! There are basically just pirate ships and merchant ships, and you’re trying to get the most gold. Simple enough, right?

Components:

The game is just a deck of cards: 25 merchant ships, 48 pirate ships (in 4 colors), 4 pirate captains (one in each color), and 1 admiral.

The artwork on the cards is fun — also done by Gary Locke as with Scallywags. Of course, most of it is two types of ships, but you do get the four pirate captains and the admiral. The only complaint I’ve heard is that the color choices could have been better. The pirate colors are tan, purple, green, and blue, and some of those can be difficult to distinguish, particularly in low light.

The four pirate captains and the admiral.

Gameplay:

All the cards are shuffled and each payer gets 6 cards.

On your turn, the first thing you do is look around to see if there are any merchant ships that you’ve captured (which we’ll get to in a minute). Then you get to draw a card or play a card. To play a merchant ship, you place it on the table in front of you. Pirate ships can be played to attack merchant ships or to strengthen your existing attack on a merchant ship. Captains are trump cards to strengthen an existing attack, and the admiral is a trump to defend your own ship.

Pirate ships are used to attack merchant ships in front of other players, or to attack ships in front of you if other players have already sent pirates after them. Each pirate ship has between 1 and 4 skulls on it, indicating its power, and a color. The first time you attack a merchant ship, you can use any color as long as no other player has used that color on that ship. After that, you must continue using the same color for that particular merchant ship, but you can use a different color for other merchant ships. You may attack a merchant ship that you played in order to keep possession of it when other players have attacked it.

A pirate captain can be played to strengthen your attack on a merchant ship as long as it matches the color of ships you’ve already played. A pirate captain is stronger than all other pirate ship attacks, regardless of number — however, the last pirate captain to be played wins the attack. Finally, the admiral is like a captain but can only be played on your own merchant ship.

If, at the beginning of your turn, you have a merchant ship that has not been attacked by anyone, it is yours to keep and you place it in your scoring pile. Also, if there are any merchant ships for which you have the highest attack value (by adding up all the skulls) then you gain those as well. In other words, you must maintain the lead on a ship for an entire round in order to claim it. If there is a tie for highest attack value then the merchant ship just sits there until the tie is broken.

The game ends when the draw pile is depleted and one player has played their last card. Any uncaptured merchant ships are discarded and not claimed by any player. The player with the highest gold value wins the game.

A few other notes: you can have as many merchant ships in play as you want. Also, since color does not indicate the player, in order to tell whose pirate ships are whose, you orient them so that they’re facing the person who played them.

Finally, there are rules for team play for 4, 6, or 8 players, which add a new twist to the game.

Conclusion:

Loot is a really brilliant little game that has surprisingly significant choices considering that you only get one action per turn. Since you can only play or draw a card, you’re often forced to choose between using up your cards to attack merchant ships and allowing your opponent to win with a weak attack while you build up your hand for a later attack. Also, if a valuable merchant ship is played, most players will fight over it — which makes it a great time to play a lower value ship that might remain unattacked until it comes back to your turn. (The problem, of course, is that then you don’t get in on that big payout.)

This game was designed by Reiner Knizia, who is great at making mathematical puzzles and boiling things down to one simple mechanic, and Loot is one that I’d recommend to nearly anyone. It can work for a broad age range, and the short play time means that it’s something you can fit in between heavier games or you can play several rounds in a row. I personally don’t think it always works as well with two players — you can get into a drawing match where neither player wants to put down a merchant ship if the other player has more cards, and then you hit a sort of stalemate where you’re both just drawing cards until the deck runs out. But with three or more, Loot is fantastic.